The Overhead Squat ( OHS)

The overhead squat is the ultimate core exercise, the heart of the snatch, and peerless in developing effective athletic movement. This functional gem trains for efficient transfer of energy from large to small body parts – the essence of sport movement. For this reason it is an indispensable tool for developing speed and power.

The overhead squat also demands and develops functional flexibility, and similarly develops the squat by
amplifying and cruelly punishing faults in squat posture, movement, and stability.
The overhead squat is to midline control, stability, and balance what the clean and snatch are to power – unsurpassed. Ironically, the overhead squat is exceedingly simple yet universally nettlesome for beginners.

There are three common obstacles to learning the overhead squat:

The first is the scarcity of skilled instruction – outside ofthe Olympic lifting community most instruction on the overhead squat is laughably horribly, wrong – dead wrong.

The second is a weak squat – you need to have a rock-solid squat to learn the overhead squat. We strongly
recommend you listen and pay attention during instruction on squatting before attempting the overhead squat; you could save yourself a lot of time in the long run.

The third obstacle is starting with too much weight – you haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of learning the overhead squat with a bar. You’ll need to use a length of dowel or plastic PVC pipe; use anything over five pounds to learn this move and your overhead squat will be nothing but a injury waiting to happen.

How do i know if i am ready for the OHS?

Check list and learning the progression:

Wall Squats or in Rack squats:

Start only when you have a strong squat and use a dowel or PVC pipe, not a weight. You should be able to
maintain a rock-bottom squat with your back arched, head and eyes forward, and body weight predominantly on your heels for a few minutes as a prerequisite to the overhead squat. Even a 15-pound training bar is way too heavy to learn the overhead squat.

2. Pass Thrus

Learn locked-arm “dislocates” or “pass-throughs” with the dowel. You want to be able to move the dowel
nearly three-hundred and sixty degrees starting with the dowel down and at arms length in front of your body and then move it in a wide arc until it comes to rest down and behind you without so much as slightly bending your arms at any point in its travel. Start with a grip wide enough to easily pass through, and then repeatedly bring the hands in closer until passing through presents a moderate stretch of the shoulders. This is your training grip

3. Squat Pass Thrus

Be able to perform the pass-through at the top, the bottom, and everywhere in between while descending into the squat. Practice by stopping at several points on the path to the bottom, hold, and gently, slowly, swing the dowel from front to back, again, with locked arms. At the bottom of each squat slowly bring the dowel back and forth moving from front to back.

4. Frontal plane awareness

Learn to find the frontal plane with the dowel from every position in the squat. Practice this with your eyes closed. You want to develop a keen sense of where the frontal plane is located. This is the same drill as step 3 but this time you are bringing the dowel to a stop in the frontal plane and holding briefly with each pass-through. Have a training partner or coach check to see if at each stop the dowel is in the frontal plane.

5. Shoulder & Overhead position

Start the overhead squat by standing straight and tall with the dowel held as high as possible in the frontal plane. You want to start with the dowel directly overhead, not behind you, or, worse yet, even a little bit in front.

6. Straight Bar path

Very slowly lower to the bottom of the squat, keeping the dowel in the frontal plane the entire time. Have
a coach watch from your side to make sure that the dowel does not move forward or backward as you squat to bottom. Moving slightly behind the frontal plane is O.K., but forward is dead wrong. If you cannot keep the dowel from coming forward your grip may be too narrow. The dowel will not stay in the frontal plane automatically; you’ll have to pull it back very deliberately as you descend.

7. Practice

Practicing the overhead squat regularly and increase load in tiny increments. its easy to just put a 2.5-pound plate on the dowel, then a 5, then a 5 and a 2.5, and then a 10. Next use a 15-pound training bar, but only while maintaining perfect form. There’s no benefit to adding weight if the dowel, and later the bar, cannot be kept in the frontal plane.

These lessons will be taught in class and if you choose to listen to your very well certified coaches and you practice this squat outside of class… you will see results and learn to OHS.

The difference between your overhead squat and your back or front squat is a solid measure of your midline
stability and control and the precision of your squatting posture and line of action.

Improving and developing your overhead squat will fix faults not visible in the back and front squat

Thursday October 26, 2017

Focus:

Very Light Technique work for many today as identified above in the blog to indicate whether you are ready to Overhead squat.

HEAVY DAYS

CrossFit isn’t just about strength, but strength is certainly part of the program. In the Level 2 cert Coach Steph & I took, we were going over heavy days & set, rep schemes, warm ups and an of outline different ways to fit strength training into your programming. For instance, CFI has had a lot of endurance-oriented athletes, so introducing this concept of lifting heavy, wasn’t always the easiest to introduce. But once they saw how affective it can be and how it can increase strength it has become more accepted even some people crave these days. Putting heavy load on the skeletal structure once and a while is needed.

It’s also important to remember that strength training should show up regularly ( in a met-con), but it will not be at the expense of the other aspects of fitness. Strength is important, but it’s just one aspect of a GPP program.

Today at Indestri we look at our Snatch Work

What’s up Indestri today we are doing Skill work and addressing the Snatch.

So as usual on the weekend in my down time, I take time to listen to podcasts, read through articles in the CrossFit Journal and one of my go to websites is Mike’s Gym. Mikes Gym is Coach Mike Burgener free website that is full of incredible training tips, programming and articles. As I was reading I came across an article from Eugene Allen posted way back in 2005. He talks about a seminar from Coach B and how it breaks down olympic lifts. Specifically in this article it addresses his seminar on “Momentum And Elevation On The Bar” (to read the full article Click HERE)

I have taken some parts of the article and posted below for you to read about Mikes approach to teaching Snatch. This is important as we will be breaking the snatch down Thursday in class.

Snatch Tips: COACH MIKE BURGENER

JUMP AND LAND

Jump and Land. It’s all about jumping and landing in order to create momentum and elevation on the barbell. That’s it folks, that’s the Olympic lifting story in a nutshell, a small nutshell. Now there are more details of course and for that detail we will need more nuts, for indeed you need nuts to do Olympic lifting. Well, that’s not entirely accurate considering how many women out-lift me, but for sure you need junk yard dog aggression commensurate with your desire to succeed at the lift.

BOTTOM POSITION

Your arms must be locked and your head in a neutral position eyes forward…not up, forward. When overhead you will have released your hook grip and will have your palms facing upward. Engage your shoulders and press them upward. Pull the bar apart sideways and stay tight. This is not a relaxed, comfortable position but rather a condition of very significant tension. Your butt is between your ankles, you back slightly arched.

BARBELL PATH/AREA OF THE BASE

The shortest distance between two fixed points is a straight line. This physical law is violated if you do not move the barbell along a straight path from the ground to either the clean or the snatch position. What tends to happen with the PVC pipe because of the lack of weight is that the lifter will move the bar in an arc forward and upward with straight arms which would not, could not happen with any substantial weight on the bar. The barbell must remain close to the body and this happens by bending the elbows up and to the outside not in an upward pull of the bar but rather a downward pull of the body. This straight line path for the barbell keeps it in the area of the base which is illustrated above with the white jumping stance feet and the black landing stance feet.

Stability

As bipeds we are in a constant state of interaction with the ground when we are standing. You will note a substantial lack of two legged chairs and tables leading one to believe that two legs are not particularly stable. It would be a substantial hit on the fashion industry if we evolved that third or fourth leg but it would be much better for our stability. Until then we are stuck with a support system that requires constant adjustment as we change our position or elevation or otherwise adjust our alignment.

While you bend forward at the waist your body is pulled forward and you need to stick your butt back to even the score. dangle a heavy barbell from your arms and you complicate matters, the only way to compensate is to keep the center of gravity of the barbell as close your own center of gravity as you possibly can. The area of the base is described by a box that contains your feet. If you allow the barbell to drift forward of that box it will pull you forward and you will have to step that way to recover or lose the weight forward. The opposite will happen if the weight moves outside the box to the rear.

So, keep the barbell inside the area of the base by keeping it as close as possible to your body during the pull and once it is overhead keep it above your ears.

Additional Cues/Tips:

Keep your pelvis tucked under and maintain proper spinal alignment. If your pelvis tilts you will begin to create a lever arm that will place tremendous stress on your back and you will lose the weight forward. Tension and skeletal alignment are key and will make or break the lift.

Though there is some variance in the landing stance from lifter to lifter, there is an optimum stance for the individual that must be pursued and perfected. Coach B. told us he can watch the feet of the lifter tell not only whether or not the lift will be successful but whether it will fail to the front or rear. Mark the ground with your optimum landing position and find it every time.

“Practice technique over strength and weight. Bar travel, body position, foot placement, timing, mechanical advantage, skeletal alignment and proper muscular tension for your support base must become automatic not require your conscious thought. How do you get better at the snatch? SNATCH! How do you get better at the clean and jerk? Do I really have to tell you?” – Mike Burgener

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Theres much more detail in the article noted above but these are some tips and cues that will help you focus on the task at hand today when in class at CF indestri. Ask your coaches questions they like to give answers ;)

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Skill Work:

Coach led Burgener Warm up

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OH Squat 20 mins

10-10-10-10-10

@ 55% 1RM Snatch

(Quality over Quantity) – PVC & Trainer bar for Mobility Challenged

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Snatch Pull 15 mins

3-3-3 @ 80%

2-2 @90%

1 @100%

For the more skilled lifters I would like you to attempt to do Panda Pulls